Are we overselling Leadership?

There are ample training programs on developing leadership qualities. Almost everyone appreciates leaders. Are they telling us the truth about leadership?

I was once requested by a small company with twenty employees to conduct a program on leadership. I asked for how many. They said, “Why don’t you do it for all of them?”

I automatically asked them, “If all of them become leaders, then who will be their followers?”

Leaders are useless without followers.

Are there any training programs for followers? Do management textbooks talk about the qualities of a follower?

It is always falsely assumed that no one needs training or coaching on how to become an efficient follower, as these qualities are supposed to be inherent in us!

However, teams fail mainly because of inefficient followers rather than incompetent leaders.

Duties of Followers

Quite often we see that the employees don’t like their bosses. This is mainly because the followers are unaware of their duties. A follower doesn’t bother to know and understand his role as an employee because a major portion of responsibility rests with the boss.

When employees become bosses for a group of erstwhile colleagues, they expect unopposed acceptance, which they never provided earlier when they were followers.

Bosses are disappointed when they come to know that their followers have ill feeling toward them! This is a direct result of everyone wanting to become a leader.

A team is only as robust as the most inefficient group member.

Similar to the adage “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”, one group member can bring down the efficiency of a group, irrespective of how great their leader is.

While selecting someone for a leadership position, Interviewers should bother asking an applicant to narrate incidents where they were good followers, rather than questioning them about different leadership positions.

No person can be a 100% leader.

A leader, too, should follow certain rules, guidelines, morals, regulations, responsibilities, etc., irrespective of the position they assume. They should always follow the goals set by the stakeholders.

If they haven’t learned to follow these things when they were followers, then there is little chance that they are capable of handling a group.

We can’t choose our followers; we can only train them

Many of us feel that we deserve better followers and we would have achieved more if this was true. The question we should ask is, “Is the leader required when all followers are efficient?” So, whoever comes into the team we should train them to work cohesively. Here, cooperation skills become necessary. See “The 12C’s of the Cooperation Cycle” for detailed insight.

 

You practice leadership by following a leader.

The leaders should be able to build relationships, climb gradually into the leadership, be great followers, have high morals, spurn cruelty, be role models, not bother about winning, look out for public benefit, be able to assign responsibilities and create future leaders. These qualities are explained in “The Psychology of a Leader”.

The leader should be a giver and not a receiver.

In one of my articles, “Light your own L A M P (Leadership + Attitude + Motivation= Performance)”, I compared a leader to the wick of a traditional lamp. Just like a wick burns to provide light, a leader has to keep giving to help others. His job is not only to lead others but also to create future leaders.

Every follower is also a leader.

As followers, we have an active role to play within us. We are responsible for our actions as well as our thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. It is always imperative to summon leadership in us while choosing them. We need to take charge of our lives by deciding which action is better, what thought is helpful, which perceptions are beneficial, and what emotions are relevant. See “Who is in charge of our lives?” to identify ten pointers to own up to the responsibility.

Lead oneself to lead others

As the diagram above depicts, we should first learn how to lead ourselves before we embark on leading others. Being willing to give the best is a major requirement of the leader, whether a person is in the leadership role or not. If, in a team of 20 people, all of them aspire to become leaders, then whoever is chosen as a leader, 19 people will feel let down. With that feeling, will they make the team successful is the question we should ask.

Followership v/s Leadership

We are busy training people to become leaders without bothering about how one should train oneself to be a good follower. We are truly overselling leadership. However, in reality, no individual will come forward, no team will agree, and no organization will sponsor a training program on ‘Followership’. Perhaps that is why we are falling short of good leaders everywhere!

For all leadership articles see https://www.swachchetan.com/search/label/Leadership